Jerry West’s name is coming up in potential Warriors’ transition talk

What’s the best and fastest way to earn yourself instant credibility and position yourself for success as a potential NBA ownership group?

Call up Jerry West. Ask him questions about the league. See if he wants to join in. Get a feel to see if he’d like to either be an advisor or larger partner if a sale comes through.

Right, Jerry?

“No, no… I don’t know about that, especially when you’re talking about an old guy like me,” West said last week when I told him any group looking to buy the Warriors would be smart to call him for big-picture hoops advice and maybe more.

But West didn’t say he was uninterested. He didn’t say he was done forever with the NBA. Not at all.

In fact, a source with broad ownership ties confirmed that West and No. 1 Warriors pursuer Larry Ellison have had conversations over the years. It probably would be safe to presume that Ellison holds West in high esteem, because Ellison is no dummy, either.

If Ellison ends up buying the Warriors from Chris Cohan, West would be someone Ellison might lean on in a transition period, you’d have to figure.

But the same source–who was the first person to tell me outright that Ellison and Cohan held purchase talks in July–said that West might have more serious involvement with another, unnamed group interested in buying the team and eventually moving it to San Francisco.

“West’s name is coming up,” the source said. “I think he’s in play on this.”

The source didn’t know if West was possibly just advising groups looking at the Warriors or if West could come aboard as a part-owner, basketball kingpin if a sale goes through.

But no matter the details of his potential role, just having West’s name out there is pretty intriguing.

(Just one sample possibility: Kobe Bryant can become a free agent this summer. He’ll probably stay with the Lakers. But his mentor is… Jerry West, who re-made the Lakers’ roster 14 10 years ago to make room to acquire Kobe and Shaq in the same summer.

(Could he do it again, with another team–just for Kobe? That’s just one tiny element to the West intrigue.)

So I did the most direct thing. I called him up and asked: Jerry, is it possible that you’d come on board to help run the Warriors in some capacity if they’re sold?

“I don’t know about any of that,” West said from his Bel-Air home last week. “It’s not important. If anybody calls me and wants to talk to me about anything like that, they can call me.

“People do call me and ask me about players and teams, which is flattering. I do watch the games and I talk to people. And I have certain thoughts and opinions…
“But it’s just not important right now. I’m feeling good doing what I’m doing and that’s what’s important. I think I’m probably too old for anybody to be talking to me about something like that, anyway.”

West, 71, confirmed that he and Ellison met several years ago to discuss a large opportunity that West would not discuss specifically–almost certainly to see if Ellison could purchase the Lakers from Jerry Buss.

That deal never happened; West says he and Ellison have not stayed in touch since then. West says he found Ellison to be a “fascinating, driven” man and executive, but says he has no inkling about Ellison’s recent pursuit of the Warriors.

Then West added: “You know, there might be another group interested in the Warriors.”

Yeah, I keep hearing about another group, tied to a plan for a San Francisco arena… Hmm.

I asked West again: Would you possibly be asked to be a part of that group–either as a consultant or full-time executive, and would you agree to something like that?

“I don’t know about anything like that,” West said. “I really don’t. It’s not important. But if people want to call me, they can call me.”

Flashback: The last time I had a conversation like this with West this was March 2002, when West had been gone from the Lakers for a year and a half.

Back then, I had the strange idea–reinforced by several people who know him well–that he was ready to come back to the NBA.

Back then, Robert Rowell was making the final steps of his Warriors management takeover, Garry St. Jean was still holding on as GM and Chris Mullin was a few years away from running the basketball operations.

Back then, West said if anybody wanted to call him, they could call him and talk, but that nobody was calling him.

Naturally, the Warriors management shrieked that West was retired and never was coming back and why oh why would anybody bring up this crazy issue?

(Mostly, Rowell and his drones were–appropriately–scared that a power exec like West would immediately order them all out of his sight if he landed with the Warriors.)

They never called him.

Oops: West was interested in coming back.

Seven months after our conversation, West signed a five-year deal to become the president of the Memphis Grizzlies, with mixed but interesting results, investing that odd franchise with some credibility, and ended his reign in 2007.

This year, West finished writing his autobiography (out in a few months) and was hired by the PGA Tour to run the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club a few weeks ago.

West says he feels great. He still loves the NBA.

So… It has been eight years since the last time there was even a glimmer of a chance that West might be interested in having a role with the Warriors. Eight years is a long time.

West has nothing to prove to anybody.

We don’t know when and if Cohan might sell the team, and to whom, and what the new owners might want to do with their management staff if they take over.

I don’t know if West wants to throw himself into running a franchise, but I’d have to believe he’d listen to an offer for a strong consulting role.

A large point: Memphis might not have worked out perfectly for West because it was far away from West’s Southern California base and because the owner, Michael Heisley, is a bit of a meddler.

The Warriors have interested West, at least lightly, because they are so close to LA and, I’d presume, because West knows that this area loves the NBA.

If the Warriors had a rich and aggressive owner who respected West, and if West didn’t have to be up here every day, and if he could hire someone to handle the day-t0-day operations… why wouldn’t that be worth trying?

It wasn’t a crazy thought eight years ago–anything that scares Robert Rowell, by definition, almost has to be a good idea–and it’s not crazy now.